Everything They Say is True | Complete Guide to Beer Making for Beginners

Are you interested in learning how to brew beer? Or maybe you are just curious about the beer making process? Here is a complete guide to beer making for beginners so you can learn exactly how your favorite beverage is made.

When I started brewing beer, I started with a beer-making kit that used extracts. As I progressed in my skills and knowledge, I realized there is so much more to beer making for beginners. The information in this guide was KEY in beginning to brew.

Beer can be such a simple beverage, yet the brewing process can seem daunting and overwhelming.

You will learn the basics for beer making for beginners, all-grain brewing vs extract brewing, hops, yeast, water, and more! You will leave with a deeper understanding and more inspiration to create.

This post is all about beer making for beginners.

Beer Making for Beginners

As we all might know, beer is yeast, malt, water, and hops fermented to create a lightly alcoholic drink. The 4 main ingredients in beer have been in place for many years. Though, natural homebrewers enjoy crafting beers with herbs and other spices.

To start our journey on beer making for beginners, we have the basic brewing procedure:

Prep and sanitize ALL equipment that will come in contact with your beer.
Steep the grains or add extract to your water, see the section below.
Boil the water and begin your hop schedule. The boil usually lasts 60 minutes, but some can range from 30 minutes to 90 minutes.
Cool the wort in an ice bath.
Measure your ABV with your hydrometer.
Pitch your yeast and begin the fermentation process.

Steps 1 through 6 happen within one day, called “Brew Day”. Then, you allow your beer to ferment for up to two weeks.

After one week, primary fermentation is complete (usually) and you can move your ferment into secondary fermentation. We implement secondary to increase beer clarity and greater flavor dimension.

After two weeks, or when your beer shows the correct statistics, you can move on to the bottling process. Essentially, you bottle your homebrew and add a touch of sugar to invigorate fermentation which carbonates the beer.

Bottle conditioning takes about 2 weeks to mature, then place in the fridge and wait.

All-Grain Brewing vs. Extract Brewing

For beginner brewers, all-grain brewing vs extract brewing are two different ways of brewing beer. Both provide enough fermentable sugars when using a good recipe which ferments into a lovely beer.

But, what is the difference between them, and what should you start with?

Extract Beer Brewing

To engage in extract brewing you simply use malt extracts instead of regular grains like wheat, barley, etc. Malt extracts are either a syrup-based fermentable sugar or powder-based sugar.

I recommend to start brewing with extracts, then move on to all-grain brewing when you are familiar with the process.

Extract brewing allows for a faster brew day. All you need is a heat source and water! Extracts also are pre-made to hit specific brewing metrics fairly easily.

The most popular extracts are,

You can simply melt the extract into your water during the “Boil” phase, as mentioned above, and it creates your wort.

Dry malt extract (DME) has a better shelf life than liquid malt extract (LME). Though, fresh LME has a better malt aroma than DME. When storing liquid malt extract keep it in a cool place for a longer shelf life.

Check the “use by” dates on LME and if you use it within 6 months of that date, you are generally going to make a good beer.

If you can’t get fresh LME, use DME.

PRO TIP FOR LME: Liquid malt extract is a syrup and will settle directly on the bottom of the kettle and will burn if not dissolved quickly. So, to solve that, simply take your pot off the stove and add in your LME. Stir until it is fully dissolved, do not burn!

PRO TIP FOR DME: Add the dry malt extract slowly while stirring constantly. Like making cookies! It dissolves best in cooler water but takes a while. When added to hot water DME tends to clump which can be challenging to dissolve, but they will eventually!

All-Grain Beer Brewing

We see that extracts are the best beginner brewer method. Commercial breweries practice all-grain brewing. However, with some TLC all-grain brewing can be understood.

Instead of using a syrup or powder for the fermentable sugar in your beer, you will use nothing but grain, or known as all-grain.

The “grain bill” is the combination of malts in a beer recipe. A recipe can have a couple of different types of malts: Caramel-20 and 2-Row is the grain bill for a blonde ale! However, it depends on the style of beer and the brewer’s goal what is in the grain bill.

The grain bill also tells the brewer how much fermentable sugar comes from the malts. Yeast eat the fermentable sugars and create alcohol.

If there is too much fermentable sugar, the beer won’t be good, and vise versa. Therefore, it is imperative the brewer understands the fermentable sugar content.

What is mashing in brewing?

Mashing is a great reason why some people prefer extract brewing. The process of mashing adds more time and care to the brew day.

Mashing is the process of “milling” your grain (or crushing it up) and then steeping it in water at a specific temperature for a specific time.

This process pulls out all the fermentable sugars in the malt and disperses them into the water. Also adds color, mouthfeel, and aroma to the brew. When homebrewing, we add our malts into a grain bag which is essentially the same as a tea bag, but for grains!

Some malts will come pre-mashed or pre-milled, so all the brewer needs to do is steep the grains. Here is an example of the “Steeping” procedure, also mentioned above in the basic brewing procedure.

Heat the water in the pot to 160F and cut the heat.
Add grains to a grain bag and place in the water.
Stir gently. The water temperature should come down to about 155F.
Cover the pot and steep for 30 minutes. Keep the temperature as close to 155 as possible by turning the stove on and off.
Remove the grain bag and allow it to drip over the water, do not squeeze.

You can find malts for all-grain brewing at MoreBeer!.

All About Hops, Yeast, and Water

Now, we have covered the malts of beer brewing: extract brewing and all-grain brewing. Here are the three other ingredients that make our favorite drink.

Hops

Again, as we know, hops! But, what we might not know is the different kinds of hops and their differing flavor profiles.

References on the internet could motion you towards different varieties of hops. The main takeaway for hops is the regions in which they originate.

Hops grow in four regions of the world: German/Czech, America, Australia/NZ, and England. Each region has its special flavors!

German hops give earthy, woodsy, and peppery flavors.
American hops provide for their citrus, tropical fruit, and pine-like flavors.
Australian/NZ hops give tropical fruit, pineapple, and spice. Most commonly used in IPAs and pale ales.
English hops provide floral, earthy, and perfumey flavors.

When brewers are crafting their recipes, they keep this in mind to impart certain flavors from certain hops. Beer has multiple types of hops, just like malt. The “hop schedule” is when the hops are added during the boil.

What is a hop schedule?

During the beer making process, after steeping we have the “boil”, as mentioned above. It is during this time that we involve the hop schedule.

The boil usually lasts about 30-90 minutes. Most traditionally it is 60 minutes. Hops added at specific times during that 30-90 minutes impact bitterness, flavor, and aroma. However, there is a science behind it:

Add hops in the beginning of the boil for bitterness.

Add hops in the middle of the boil for flavor.

Add hops at the end of the boil for aroma.

An example of a hop schedule would look like this: When the wort begins to boil, add in 1 ounce of Centennial hops, with 35 minutes left add 1 ounce of Cascade hops, and at the end of the 60 minutes add in the final 2 ounces of Cascade.

The centennial hops provide bitterness while the cascade hops add flavor and aroma.

Another time to add hops is during secondary fermentation. Hops added during secondary fermentation are for additional flavor and aroma

Yeast

Yeast is my favorite, the magic creatures that provide us with fermented drinks! The yeast used for beer, wine, cider, etc are all different and impart different flavors.

Yeast has multiple byproducts when consuming sugars. One is esters. Esters are compounds that impart flavor in the beer. Usually, noted as “fruity”. Some yeast strains impart clove and banana flavors like in a hefewiezen.

The two most popular yeasts for beer are,

Safale US-05 is a dried yeast packet while wyeast is a wet yeast. Wyeast is interesting because you keep it refrigerated and have to “activate” the package before pitching the yeast into the wort.

They are both great yeasts to start with. I would use Wyeast 24/7 if it was easy to use for 1-gallon batches! However, since it is liquid yeast I find it difficult to keep the remaining yeast population alive. Which gets expensive overtime just using 1/5 of the yeast packet!

If you are brewing 5 gallons, I would recommend Wyeast. Their yeast populations are clean, effective, and create great beer every time!

Safale, on the other hand, is great to have around. It is easy to innoculate various brew sizes and is clean. It is the most popular and widely known yeast strain on the market.

For further information on the fermentation process, check out my post here about primary vs secondary fermentation, and the lifespan of our lovely yeasts!

Water

Lastly, water is a very important ingredient when brewing. Certain water sources can have an abundance of minerals which affects the beer during fermentation. Additionally, treated water can have chlorine which can result in a plastic and medicinal flavor in the beer.

You can contact your water supplier to learn the composition of your water. This information will give you a good insight into whether your water will be okay to brew with.

Now that you know the beer making process and the elements that make a great beer, it is time to put that into action! Try this lightly hopped beer recipe.

It uses dry malt extract and one type of hop: cascade. It is an approachable recipe and is great for beginners. If you want to start brewing from a kit first, then I highlight the top 4 best beer recipe kits for you to get started with!

Enjoy, and follow on Pinterest for more DIY beer inspiration.

Everything They Say is True | Complete Guide to Beer Making for Beginners

Beer Making for Beginners

To start our journey on beer making for beginners, we have the basic brewing procedure: